Research on expression cognition of schizophrenic patients has been actively carried out since the 1970s. Such research includes studies of various theories that say schizophrenic patients have an overall cognition disorder; their emotion cognition is generally deteriorating; only their negative emotion cognition is deteriorating; and their specific emotion is deteriorating. Additionally, there are studies that say the type of expression cognition differs depending on the clinical entity of schizophrenia as well as other studies that say schizophrenic patients do not have emotion cognition disorders. Therefore, there are ongoing arguments among the theories of schizophrenia that say patients cannot recognize all of the emotions expressed by other people, or that they cannot recognize specific emotions, or that their emotion cognition is not disordered at all.
The reference entitled “Related Articles, Links Perception of Facial Emotion in Schizophrenic and Right Brain-Damaged Patients”, by Borod, et al., Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Aug. 1993, p. 181(8) and 494-502 discloses that the negative symptoms schizophrenic patients have are related to disorders of the right cerebral hemisphere. In addition, the hypothesis that schizophrenic patients have apathia and their expression cognition deteriorates has not been proven, and it has been suggested that there is no relationship between apathia and emotion cognition.
Thus, studies of an expression cognitive deficit in schizophrenic patients now include practical studies that focus on symptoms in addition to the argument about whether those patients have an overall emotion cognitive deficit. Currently, as the result of various discussions, there is a general consensus which concludes that schizophrenic patients have disorders in the ambiguous expression cognition.
The article entitled “The psychopathologic research of expression cognition”, by S. Minoshita, et al. published in the February, 2000, issue of the “Brain Science” magazine by Seiwa Publishers, includes the following passages as part of the study of the expression cognition using Noh masks: “Herein, we will introduce our currently-developing research on the study of expression cognition using Noh masks. On the basis of Masuyama, Osaka and Suzuki's preceding study on images of Noh masks, we are currently conducting the following study.
In this experiment, we asked examinees to evaluate stimulating Noh mask images shown on a computer with respect to each of twelve statements (1. She is surprised, 2. She is sad, 3. She has hope, 4. She is shy, 5. She is putting a curse on me, 6. She is absent-minded, 7. She is enjoying herself, 8. She is interested in me, 9. She has pride, 10. She is depressed, 11. She is entranced, 12. She thinks I am weird) which the authors uniquely selected.
Fifteen Noh mask images photographed at different angles (down50, down40, down30, down20, down10, down6, down2, front, up2, up6, up10, up20, up30, up40, up48) were used within the range from tilting down 50 degrees to tilting up 48 degrees. In the experiment, a question was first given to an examinee, the point of regard was shown, and a Noh mask stimulating image was then shown and the image was displayed until the examinee answered “YES” or “NO”.
Examinees include 15 healthy male subjects and 15 schizophrenic patients.
The obtained data was analyzed by using the multidimensional scaling (MDS) method. This is a commonly used method to arrange stimulating images for the study of emotions, and this method is also used in Schlosberg's emotion circular ring model. The resulting mapping shows two dimensions consisting of “pleasant-unpleasant” and “attention-rejection.” (FIG. 1)”
In this application, the above-mentioned FIG. 1 is regarded as FIG. 23 which is the last drawing in this document.
Additionally, the above-mentioned description has been partially changed.
Next, in Japanese Application Laid-open Publication No. 2004-298526 which includes portions of the above-mentioned paper, there is a passage: “the mapping suggests that, for example, healthy subjects evaluate a Noh mask photographed at a downward angle of 50 degrees to be generally pleasant and rejective, whereas schizophrenic patients evaluate the same image generally unpleasant and rejective. As is the case with Schlosberg's emotion circular ring structure, the evaluation of the Noh mask images by healthy subjects creates an almost circular ring on the two dimensions consisting of “pleasant-unpleasant” and “attention-rejection”. On the other hand, the evaluation by schizophrenic patients creates a semicircular which lacks a direction indicating “unpleasant”. That is, schizophrenic patients do not consider a Noh mask having a malicious intent, but they tend to consider the mask as expressing rather favorable emotions. Therefore, schizophrenic patients tend to be slow in recognizing somebody's malicious intent, and there is the possibility that they may be cheated easily.”
Japanese Application Laid-open Publication No. 2004-298526 discloses a schizophrenia diagnosis apparatus including
a stimulation display means for providing an examinee with visual stimulation,
a viewpoint identification means for identifying a viewpoint of the examinee with respect to the stimulation display means,
a reactive search score calculation means for calculating reactive search scores from the results measured by the stimulation display means and the viewpoint identification means,
a motion measuring means for measuring the number of motions from the results measured by the stimulation display means and the viewpoint identification means, and
a means for diagnosing whether the examinee is suffering from schizophrenia or not based on the reactive search scores obtained by the reactive search score calculation means and the number of motions obtained by the number of motions measuring means.
In the psychiatric clinical examination or mental competency evaluation, the diagnosing, clinical examination, assessment, and counseling are carried out for people with organic brain damage, schizophrenics, depressives, people with personality disorder, dipsomaniacs, drug addicts, people with PTSD, and healthy subjects with depressive tendency who may able to be cured by counseling.
As stated above, the inventors of this application found out that the use of stimulating Noh mask images makes it possible to effectively judge whether a person is suffering from a mental disease or not. Furthermore, the inventors of this application have been engaged in the above-mentioned diagnosis, clinical examination, assessment, and counseling for a long time, and they have become keenly aware of the need to collectively judge the presence of symptoms at the time of the diagnosis, clinical examination, assessment, and counseling with regard to the above-mentioned symptoms in addition to individual evaluation of organic brain damage or schizophrenia. Specifically, it is important to quickly and accurately evaluate a large number of patients to determine whether they are suffering from organic brain damage, schizophrenia, or have depressive tendency (including depression) as well as evaluating the degree of depression. At present no such apparatus and method exists.